(WTAQ-WLUK) – A state appeals court ruled Wednesday that the parents of a helicopter pilot killed in a 2018 crash in Oshkosh cannot sue the company which owned the power lines the helicopter struck.
Jonathan Bahr was hired to fly a helicopter so a pilot could get video of the Four Horseman Poker Run in Lake Winnebago. After dropping the photographer off, Bahr took off to refuel. Shortly after that, as it crossed the Fox River, the helicopter struck and severed two wires—a shielding wire owned by ATC and a fiber-optic ground wire owned by a third party but attached to ATC’s poles. The helicopter plunged into the river, and Jonathan drowned.
Bahr’s parents, Glen Bahr and Lori Erschen-Bahr, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against ATC, claiming its negligence in failing to mark the wires led to their son’s death. A circuit court dismissed the suit in ATC’s favor, and the couple appealed.
In a nine-page decision issued Wednesday, the state appeals court affirmed the circuit court’s ruling.
“Because we conclude that the Bahrs’ claims are precluded by the limitation of liability provision in the federal tariff regulating ATC, we affirm,” the decision states. “This case simply does not require us to determine the outer bounds of the limitation; maintaining the wires at issue in this case clearly is associated with ATC’s provision of electrical transmission services under the tariff.”
The Bahrs could appeal to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
